Friday, January 9, 2015

GOP 2016 : 'don't trust voters under 75 !' (they're all Boomers and their kids) (and relatively few 75+ vote)

In November 2016, all of "THE GREATEST GENERATION" (all those in the Allied nations born before 1941 and who can thus personally feel part of the WWII 'victory for modernity' {sic}) will be over 75.

Now journalists of all stripes never tire of telling us that the elderly vote more than the young.

But what very few journalists admit (the charitable view) or actually know (the uncharitable view) is the truly awkward fact that voting turnout actually drops off sharply after 75, as physical and cognitive infirmities keep the very old from voting.

Bad bad bad news for the GOP.

Because starting in 1968 with Nixon's first victory, the GOP has had a very good half century romp by exploiting The Greatest Generation's fundamental distaste for the fact that their children and grandchildren no longer think or vote like their parents do.

In terms of voter support , the GOP has always remained a major party based solely upon its reliable support among the pre-war generations, even when the Republican Party faltered temporarily among this or that class, gender, geographic location or ethnicity/religion.

Let me be extremely clear about what I mean : the GOP does not survive due to the vote of the elderly but solely due to the vote of a cohort - all those born before 1941.

Being 'well off' or being 'eighty' is an eternal event but not so being born before 1941: yes it is a big resource for votes, but it is also a constantly wasting resource.

And importantly, the divide in social values between the war generations and the post war generations is far, far, far greater than any internal divisions within each of these two groups.

So if the GOP doesn't start re-aligning its values with the shared values of the Boomer and post boomer generations it will soon find itself going the way of the Whig Party ...

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